Red Roses.

Your burning desire has
peppered this heart with land mines

everywhere you touch is marked by rusty barbed wires

and I let you in
because you pound on me like a battering ram

and precious real estate is bartered for empty poems and vacant eyes

you push your heart up against mine
and I drop my guard for you

like clothes that pool at my ankles
in towering waves of regret

now flagrant memories distill a whole year into a day

fool, I exchanged party favours
for a crown made of straw.